Bush says he lacks power to control rising gas pricesAdmission is an about-face from his rhetoric in 2000

TVNL Comment: Notice that it is described as an "about face" and not as a "flip-flop!"

By JULIE MASON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - With gasoline prices spiraling up just before the summer holidays, President Bush conceded Wednesday there is little he can do to help.

"I wish I could simply wave a magic wand and lower gas prices tomorrow; I'd do that," Bush told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce legislative conference. "Unfortunately, higher gas prices are a problem that has been years in the making."

Bush repeated his call to Congress to pass a long-stalled energy bill aimed at expanding domestic oil and natural gas supplies, improving the reliability of the nation's electric power grids, and promoting fuel conservation.

But Bush's admission that he lacked the power to lower prices was a notable turnaround. Bush promised as a candidate in 2000 to pressure oil producers to increase supply and drive down prices.

"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Bush said outside of Detroit in June 2000.

Bush on Monday is to meet with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the Crawford ranch and has said that energy issues will be part of the discussion.

In addition, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush has been talking with oil-producing nations about making sure affordable supplies of energy are available.

"The president has regularly brought that up in meetings he has had with producing countries, and he will continue to do so," McClellan said. "We also need to make sure that consumers are protected, that they're treated fairly during this time, as well. And we will do that."

The same poll found that 61 percent of Americans believe the price of gasoline is something a president "can do a lot about."

For Bush, that is an impression he helped reinforce when he was first running for president. In 1999, he criticized Vice President Al Gore over gas prices and said President Clinton should "jawbone OPEC" to lower prices.

Stephen Hess, a presidential expert at the Brookings Institution, said most Americans probably overestimate the power of the presidency. But he called Bush's candor "unusual."

"It has that tang of realism that you don't really expect from the White House," Hess said. "There is something almost refreshing about a president standing up there and saying, 'Gee, I don't like this any more than you do, these are complicated forces but there is not much we can do about it.'"

Gas prices were an issue a year ago, when Bush and Democrat John Kerry were wrangling on the campaign trail over who was responsible and what could be done.

At the time, Bush blamed Democrats in Congress, including Kerry, for failing to act on the energy plan, originally submitted by Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001.

Democrats have urged Bush, as an alternative, to open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the nation's cache of crude held in a series of underground reservoirs along the Gulf Coast.

The SPR, which can hold 700 millions barrels of oil, has about 670 million barrels in storage.

He's just a waffler... A syrupy waffler... and meanwhile, the price of gas skyrockets, but... gas prices aren't included in inflation figures... why is that? Other than to skew the results... why isn't the price of gas used in inflation figures?

As gasoline prices continue to climb, finger pointing is becoming a national pastime. Led by Sen. Ted Kennedy, of all people, Senate Democrats say they are "outraged that the administration is not doing everything in its power to alleviate the strain on drivers, consumers and businesses."

This same Ted Kennedy, and Tom Daschle, have led Senate Democrats to block the administration's energy bill. They have done everything in their power to increase the strain on drivers, consumers and businesses by blocking every attempt to increase domestic oil production.

Americans have every right to be angry, as they watch the rising price of gasoline take a bigger bite out of their paychecks. But their anger should be directed toward the real cause of the unnecessary price increases: irresponsible reverence for the environment.

Anger should be focused on the League of Conservation Voters and the senator they have endorsed for president. Anger should be focused on the Sierra club, the National Wildlife Federation, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife and the horde of environmental organizations that go ballistic whenever anyone proposes to drill a new oil well or build a new refinery.

Had these organizations and their well-funded congressional puppets not blocked exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge when it was first proposed, oil from that abundant supply would soon be coming on line to relieve supply pressure that forces prices upward.

But no. In every Congress for a decade, efforts to open ANWR have been met by massive, misleading anti-oil campaigns. The League of Conservation Voters claims that the oil there would last only six months. But the U.S. Energy Information Agency says that ANWR would increase domestic production by 20 percent.

Environmental organizations raise millions of dollars from mail campaigns that claim drilling in ANWR will destroy the last masterpiece of God's creation. The truth is that drilling in ANWR will affect only .1 percent – that's right, one-tenth of one percent – of the 19 million-acre refuge.

ANWR is the symbol for the greens' war on fossil fuel. Any use of fossil fuels is bad, according to the green gospel, and government should force society to turn to "alternative" fuels. This idiotic belief has resulted in regulations that add to the upward pressure on gas prices.

For example, fuel producers now have to formulate as many as 18 different blends to accommodate EPA requirements in different markets.

These same environmental organizations and Senate Democrats bashed the Bush administration unmercifully for withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol. John Kerry, in particular, wants the U.S. to submit to the Protocol, which would give a U.N. agency the power to not only regulate fossil fuel consumption in America, but to impose an arbitrary tax as well.

Anger about high gasoline prices should be directed at these green organizations and toward the congressmen who continue to do their bidding by blocking expansion of domestic oil production. Environmental organizations are quick to point a finger at the "big oil companies" for price gouging, and Senate Democrats take pleasure in blaming the Bush administration.

The Internet is full of schemes to force "big oil" to lower prices by boycotting selected suppliers.

The cause of escalating prices is simple: The demand for oil is outstripping supply. Far too much of our supply comes from foreign sources, over which the United States has little or no control.

The solution is equally simple: Increase domestic oil production. And the best place to start is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, followed by further exploration and production from federal lands and from domestic offshore reserves.

Increasing domestic oil production will not destroy the environment, as the green organizations contend. Modern technology offers increased production with hardly any adverse environmental impacts. Increased domestic production will not only reduce the price of gasoline, it will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs needed to further stimulate the American economy.

Americans should by now be weary of the environmentalists' claim that we can significantly reduce the demand for energy if we only "conserve." We have conserved by improving the efficiency of fuel use. But, there is a limit on the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Further calls for conservation measures to solve the energy problem are like suggesting fasting as a cure for starvation.

The solution to the energy problem lies in ignoring the environmental organizations and getting a handful of senators to do the same.

_________________I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom. George W. BushDESTROY THE QURAN OR BE DESTROYED BY IT

This is purely WorldNutDaily Opinion. Did this opinion piece write itself? Who's the author?

_________________"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

I just don't buy any of this...supply and demand...if their is demand they figure out ways to supply it...Bush's family is oil...the higher the gas prices are the more money he and his famiuly makes...this is about greed! IMHO!